Claiming Tax on Mobile Phone

HMS

I’m employed in the NHS and have to use my personal mobile phone for the hospital to contact me during the day (when at work) or at night when on call. The hospital expects me to have a phone, gives out my personal number to hospital employees, refuses to provide a work phone and the expenses policy does not accommodate any reimbursement of costs.

Looking at my usage over the last week 82% of my call time receiving/calling was for work related purposes. I’m struggling to find out if I:

1. Can claim any tax back on the purchase of a new phone?
2. Can claim any tax back on my contract?

Most advice online about this relates to ‘self-emplayed’. Thanks in advance.

uknick

Normally for an employee to claim expenses they have to be necessary, wholly and exclusively for work.

On that basis I think it unlikely you can claim the cost of the rental or phone as you would have it anyway. But, any specific work related call costs should be claimable. Having said that, is it worth the time to do it? How much tax relief do you expect to claim?

laticsforlife

Also I would assume that you didn't actually incur a cost on these calls, did they come out of your allowance?

If so, then if say you made zero calls for work it'd still be the same contract price paid (and you'd clearly accept there was no business use); if you make 100 calls, what was the cost of the contract, if its the same figure, then it matters not that some calls were for business, the contract is personal and unfortunately i don't see you as being able to claim anything (and no to the handset either).

Pennywise

Is the requirement to provide a mobile phone written into your employment contract?

TheCyclingProgrammer

If you pay for the phone and contract yourself then any tax relief is limited to the actual costs incurred on calls related to your job.

You would need to keep some form of itemised bill to evidence this. If you are using bundled minutes then it’s unlikely you could claim any tax relief as you have incurred no additional costs.

If you are required to make a lot of calls you could ask your employer to provide a phone. Employers can provide a SINGLE handset for both business and personal purposes without any BIK tax being due although any personal usage would obviously be governed by your employer’s own policies. It could potentially be done via a salary sacrifice arrangement. This is the most tax efficient way of doing it.

You cannot claim tax relief on any phone you have bought yourself or any personal contract in your name.